Handmade jewellery from Italy

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Opening an online shop

This is how it happens. One day, you start crafting jewellery because, you don’t even knew how, you discover you like it. It’s something that makes you happy, and then your friends seem to like what you’re doing. Hell, a few of them even buy your stuff for themselves or for making gifts. So you think, maybe other people would like to buy them, maybe I could try to sell them. Yes, but where? You already have a day job, there’s no way you can use your weekends going around little markets. What about all those stupid things you need to do on weekends, say, washing your clothes, clean up you house, buy the grocery, maybe cook something which is actually eatable?
But hey, you’re lucky! You live in the Internet days. Just open an online shop, so you can keep doing your things happily at home, and be seen by so many people… and maybe even sell something.

So you find the right place (Etsy is fantastic for this), you have a look around, get and hang on it. You open an account, recycle a few pics you already have, write a couple of lines presentation of your things. Done.

Yes. Sure.

Fine, there is your shop. Stiff dead. Nobody cares about it. You start thinking, there must be something I can do about it.
You have a further look around and so discover you should join a team, which is spectacular because there you meet a lot of nice people with a lot of experience and willing to share. So you discover your pics suck, so much so that they’re probably scaring customers off rather than attract them. You should take more professional photos, you should photoshop them to make them more glamorous. You should use light and colours and special effects, but with taste. Here is where you panic, because of course you can do nothing of all this. So you have to learn.

Fine, but after you’re done this, you’re all set, right?
Mhm…
What about your profile? Blank and boring. You should write a few lines about yourself, but there is a right way to go about it and a wrong way to go about it. Of course, you have to learn how to do it.
On the team, you’re told your prices are laughable, so you discover there is a way to set prices. Shipments? You have to learn prices, methods, when and how you can or should use a method that allows you to track your shipment. You have to learn how to deal with customers, how to meet their requirements, how far you can go with your niceness so to be polite and not seem unprofessional. All things you didn’t know you should know.

And wait, what about those unremarkable descriptions you uploaded? Trash them and rewrite them in a more attractive way. Of course, you have to learn how to do it. You have to learn how to present your shop and your activity so to appeal to customers. You have to get a banner. You have to learn how to recognize your ideal customer. You have to learn how to give a name to your items and how to tag them. More things you didn’t know you have to know.

But at least, when you’re done with this, you’re nice and set, right?
Right?
Ah, right. Once you’re done with this, you’re done with the easier part.